


The Eternal Life of Jane Ross

by afterdinnerminx, PhryneFicathon



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-11 20:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13532208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterdinnerminx/pseuds/afterdinnerminx, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhryneFicathon/pseuds/PhryneFicathon
Summary: Jane is visited by a stranger who she isn't sure whether she seems familiar or not. Either way, she is lovely and patiently listens to stories of her past.





	The Eternal Life of Jane Ross

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Knittingmother](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knittingmother/gifts).



"...Then she said, 'Why on earth would anyone think blowing smoke up someone's ass would resuscitate them?'" Jane's impersonation of her longtime guardian was uncanny, from the smirk she adopted to the way her eyebrows thinned upon demand, arching upwards in a curve that promised the rest of her body could bend just as easily.

A polite snort erupted out of the woman in front of her. "You're kidding," she said, darting her eyes to the corners of the room and sharing a secret smile that belied her look of having been affronted. 

The woman. Her name was on the tip of Jane's tongue. She was here almost every day, almost always dressed in saggy, thick knits with her chocolate-colored curls shaped into a low bun, and hollows of her cheeks extending to the corners of her generous, down-turned lips. Jane shouldn't speak to her strangers like this but with this one, she simply couldn't help it. It wasn't an issue of trust or even camaraderie. More like... there was no one she had ever met that had ever listened to her quite so intently.

"I swear it."

The woman tucked her bottom lip under her front teeth and wrinkled her nose. She leaned forward and spoke in a hush, "Well, what'd you say to that?"

"I would have said something but Mac beat me to it. I can still picture it. It was the late 1930's. Mac had always worn beautifully tailored pantsuits but she had just started wearing her hair short with a side part and pomade, which hardly reflected the orange of the fire in the fireplace because the color of her own hair was just as bright. Anyhow, Mac had her bottom on the very edge of the settee. She placed her elbow on the edge of her knee. She leaned forward and pursed her lips. Then she says--dryer than the martini she was drinking--'I'll have you know the Society for the Recovery of Drowned Persons claims to have saved several hundred people by such methods.' Phryne wasn't just going to let that hang in the air like that, was she?"

"No, of course not," said the woman, shaking her head while she picked lint off the green wool skirt that matched the pair of eyes on the verge of laughing.

Jane glanced around the room to make sure it was still just the two of them. A pair of nurses in royal blue scrubs stood on the other side of the open French doors. Hovering, as usual. "So, Phryne gives her this look, like she's a cat licking her whiskers and she says..."

The blond nurse slipped into the room and pretended to arrange a vase of lilies. Silk lilies. Of the variety that was molded to some unseen ball of Styrofoam. The other leaned against the doorjamb and stared into space. Jane could speak loudly enough to shock them. She often did. After all, they should simply mind their own business. 

Shouldn't they. 

In her mind's eye, Jane imagined Dot and that sharp nod of her head she would do while, needle flying to create some pithy, pastel-colored statement about the places of homes and hearts, all while purring, "That would be the polite thing to do. Not that many people remember how to be polite in this day and age."

Indeed, thought Jane. Then, she returned her attention to her friend—because she was a friend, wasn’t she--who was waiting expectantly for the next words Phryne said so many years ago.

What were they again?

The woman prompted, "Something about smoking..." 

"Smoking?" The idea didn't sound familiar.

Her companion's eyebrows knitted in an effort to help her remember and whispered, "Resuscitation?"

Jane couldn't remember. Smoking, smoking, smoking. Why would smoking help with resuscitation? There wasn't really much of a link between the two.

Not unless it was that one case just before the war when Mac had taken Jane under her wing. It was the night Doc Turner keeled over after having read an article about a bizarre new menu item being served in restaurants across the world in California: The Cheeseburger. "Cheese on meat? It's a goddamn travesty," he wheezed, gulping down water before grabbing his own right arm as he toppled over. Jane and Mac looked at each other in shock before jumping into action. Jane used a bellow to pump air into the man's lungs while Mac kept him warm and applied pressure to his abdomen. 

Doc Turner’s colleague, Doc Ludden, quickly lit a cigarette with shaking hands, almost igniting the imperial mustache that had gone out of style decades earlier. With the cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he tore at Turnkey's crotch. "Give it here, young lady," Ludden shouted to Jane, ignoring Mac as usual. "We must fumigate his intestines with tobacco immediately. Quickly, now... before it's too late." 

Hours after the doctor’s passing, Jane and Mac relived the event at Wardlow over cocktails...or did they come here? The same room where scallop pies were served in heaven and Cec's tenor began in a warble:

_Nights are growing very lonely,_

_Days are very long..._

Dot held Aunt P's hand and Bert wedged himself to Aunt P’s other side as if he here a bookend. That day, like this one, was bright and blue. Arthur's image was angled toward the sun and there it remained, faded at the time and now a mere trace of gray against white. 

"You were hiding behind the floral silk divider, weren't you?" Jane jumped, startled to attention by the stranger sitting in the chair in front of her who asked her the question in a kind voice and with sad eyes that tilted down at the sides, as if in apology. How long had she been there?

"I'm sorry... do I know you?" The woman's lips pulled into a line, bristling at the question, then tugged at her sweater, squaring her shoulders. 

"No, really," Jane continued, confused and wanting to help, "who are you here to see?"

The visitor raised her chin, swallowing in a subtle act of defiance, though who knew what struggle the woman set out to fight. "I'm here for my daughter."

"Oh, of course," Jane responded, realizing the visitor, who had apparently been willing to listen to her rattle on about some story or another, was not here for her after all. 

Jane sat back in her chair and let her attention drift back to the scene celebrating Arthur's life. Phryne was there. So was Jack. Only one of the two sang while Aunt Prudence wept.

_Old remembrances are thronging_

_Thro' my memory._

_Till it seems the world is full of dreams_

_Just to call you back to me..._

The stranger didn't move. Didn't leave. She just sat there. Expecting something. 

Jane didn't know what to do. So she looked the draperies. 

The drapes of rose gold crepe with ruched, Roman sheers were the ones she inherited with the house. When those rotted out--or perhaps it was more a reflection of how much the room needed to change after acting as a convalescent hospital after the second war--they were swapped out for a crisp, modern aquamarine with box curtains. Since then, they've been replaced with velour, the same color of tea with milk and, though it seemed this had just happened, the hem was already coming apart.

Nothing lasts these days, thought Jane, straightening the Victory quilt across her lap. 

Across the room, the nurse kicked off the door and strode to a table to pick up a shiny black device and illuminated the television hanging on the wall, where a spinning tripartite globe slowed to a stop to reveal the word SOUNDS in hot pink. 

The other nurse hissed, "Toby, you aren't supposed to do that. We'll get in trouble." 

Toby shrugged. "Just wanna hear a few songs to liven things up before we all die of boredom." Then she looked directly at Jane to comment, "Besides, you like music, doncha?" 

Jane did, not that it mattered. 

The first nurse--the one who had been arranging lilies--shot her colleague a look, then approached while asking, "Miss Jane, can I get you something to eat? Some jello, perhaps?"

"Okay," Jane hedged, "But I only want the green kind. Do you have the green kind?" 

"Of course." 

The nurse walked away when Jane spoke up. "Wait! Aren't you going to ask this other lady? She's here to see her daughter, you know. Do you know her daughter?" 

The nurse looked askance and took a tentative return step to stand next to the chair where the stranger sat, to address the question to the space over the stranger's head. "And what can I get you, ma'am?"

"A cup of tea would be lovely." 

Then, tilting her head and nodding, the nurse responded, "Oh...you'd like some jello as well?" _How rude_ , thought Jane and she snapped, "No, that's not what she said at all. She wants tea." The nurse had the decency to look horrified and swept out of the room. 

Jane looked at the television where the picture alternated between a woman in an apron breaking eggs into a bowl, scowling at her watch, and to a girl with hair as red as Mac's, dancing aggressively past several rowhouses. 

"I love this song, don't you?" Toby, also looking at the screen, asked the question and turned the volume up.

_I come home in the morning light,_

_My mother says when you gonna live your life right,_

_Oh, mother dear we're not the fortunate ones,_

_And girls they wanna have fun..._

"I love it, too," said the woman, her eyes warming as she reached to put her hands on Jane's. "Would you like to dance? I've waited so long to dance with you again."

"I can't dance," Jane scowled and glared at her legs for not moving when she willed them to. 

The woman tried again, "What if I promise you can?" They shared a moment, gazing into each other's eyes. This woman seemed so familiar all of a sudden. But if they had known each other, it must have been a very long time. 

_Some boys take a beautiful girl,_

_And hide her away from the rest of the world..._

"How long have you been in here, Jane? Isn't it time to enjoy yourself again? Remember what this felt like. Please, join me."

With the visitor's grip, Jane's limbs grew lighter, more supple. Her knees cooperated. Her feet, from her toes to the tendons attaching to her ankle, moved like elastic, liquid and fluid, and the feeling continued up her body, filling her hips and back and shoulders. She was standing. Just like that. And it felt glorious.

_I want to be the one to walk in the sun_

_Oh, girls, they wanna have fun..._

Jane's first tentative step, a creak, a wobble, was minuscule against the vast expanse of the dust-mited room tainted with the smell of urine. 

Warm arms encapsulated Jane, then raised her arm above her head to make her pivot like she was a ballerina.

_That's all they really want_

_Some fun..._

Jane clasped the woman's elbow just in time to swing in a large circle as she barked out a laugh so loud and clear it surprised her. 

Then, a commotion. A dropped tray complete with expletives from disparate voices. Jane looked back to see the two nurses lunging toward some old woman. Nevermind, it was none of her concern--she was dancing!

"Yes, my dear, you are dancing!" 

The song wound down and Jane felt her attention drawn to the French doors. The woman noticed and said, "Let's go see some real lilies. Did you know there's a whole garden outside?"

Certainly, the view through the window was covered in greenery. Now that she looked further, she could see a glimpse of a lavender Hyacinth. To the other side, a bright red bottlebrush and several ice-pink proteas. 

The visitor's eyes were filled with love and longing. Jane knew, finally, the name that had been on the tip of her tongue. 

Her name was Anna.

**Author's Note:**

> The three prompts together inspired this story:
> 
> Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly matter? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life.  
> -Carl Jung
> 
> Jane
> 
> Jane attempting to understand her mind and identity.... whether she's studying in school or just doing some light reading...will she become her mother? She uses critical thinking to explore new concepts and ideas that are applicable to her life.
> 
> What I brought? The idea that Jane was unquestionably the love of Anna Ross’ life, that Anna’s love for Jane was romantic, and that the longing of Anna left burning for sake of not able to raise her daughter, Anna is giving Jane this.
> 
> Lyrics to There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding (Arthur's favorite song) written by Stoddard King and lyrics Girls Just Want to Have Fun written by Cyndi Lauper


End file.
